


Sherlock Holmes, Recovering Sociopath

by Secretbadass



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Caring John, Caring Sherlock, Crying John, Crying Sherlock Holmes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Nightmares, Nowhere near as grim as these tags make it sound, Overcoming emotional constipation, POV Sherlock Holmes, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Post Season/Series 4, Post-TFP fix-it, Post-season/series 04 Fix-it, Sherlock (TV) Season/Series 04 Fix-it, Therapy, emotional honesty, grounding exercises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 17:45:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12917004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secretbadass/pseuds/Secretbadass
Summary: In the wake of the events at Sherrinford, Sherlock and John begin unpacking the emotional baggage they have been carting about since Reichenbach, start to actually talk about things, and slowly find their way back to each other.





	Sherlock Holmes, Recovering Sociopath

**Author's Note:**

> For the purposes of this fic, I am assuming that series 4 occurred exactly as depicted. In so doing, I am willfully ignoring the gaping plot holes and improbable story arcs and exhibiting a capacity for suspension of disbelief verging on the psychotic. I loved much of series 4, but it had some huge issues. This is my take on how our boys deal with the emotional fallout of the events depicted in The Six Thatchers, The Lying Detective, and The Final Problem.

I’m worried about John. No need to alert the media; this is hardly news. Since my return, I’ve done little else but worry about John. Before I...left, I thought John was indestructible. A doctor, soldier, survivor—brave, steadfast, and unflappable. He thought I was clever, brilliant, infallible, and quite incapable of forming emotional attachments. He thought of himself as a good man; I thought of myself as a sociopath.

How wrong we both were about some things. And how much has changed.

In the wake of Mary’s death and the maelstrom that was the Culverton Smith case, and especially since Eurus's eruption into our lives, John has been struggling. As have I, truth be told. So much has happened, and so much lies between us. We have lost our way, I think. Lost each other in some ways, though physically we are closer than at any time since my fall. John and Rosie have come to live with me here in the revamped 221B, and for all intents and purposes, we are a family.

John and I are talking now, more than we have ever done. There was a turning point for us that marked a sea change in our relationship, and it came one night after John awoke from a nightmare and sought me out. He had been dreaming about the well, I think. It's a nightmare we have in common. He stumbled down the stairs into the living room, where I was sitting in my chair. Awake, of course, because sleep and I have never been the best of friends and of late it appears we are not on speaking terms. John came to me, sat himself in his armchair, and ran a weary hand over his face. He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “I can’t do this alone, Sherlock,” he said, so low I could barely hear him.

“Do what alone, John?” I asked, not following. I could probably have deduced his meaning, but I refrained. I remembered what Ella had told me in one of our early sessions, shortly after Sherrinford. _Don’t deduce, Sherlock. Talk. Talk to him. Deductions can be wrong. Talking can’t._ I confess the advice went against the grain. I am, after all, British, male, and Sherlock Holmes. That makes me the walking antithesis of _talking_. But if there is one thing I have learned in the years since Reichenbach (a period John has taken to calling "the shitstorm"), it is that I cannot keep doing what I have always done while expecting a different outcome. I am reliably informed that that is one of the definitions of insanity. And I have had quite enough insanity in my life, thank you kindly. Time to do things differently, I think.

So when John locked eyes with me that night, I did not look away. There was something wounded there in his look, and though it hurt me to see it, I held his gaze. “I can’t...” he began, then trailed off. I waited. _Just listen, Sherlock. Don’t talk, don’t jump up and fix it, and above all, don’t run away. You’re an expert at using your senses and your intellect to observe and deduce, and then to rattle off all those deductions at breakneck speed. This isn't a case, it's you and John. This needs a slower approach. Try to think of silence as an observation tool. Learn to sit with what you feel, learn to listen to John, and I promise you the rewards for both of you will be greater by far than anything you could come to through deduction._ Ella, again. She does have a talent for putting things in terms even a recovering sociopath such as myself can comprehend.

So I waited, and John cleared his throat and began again, frowning down at his hands, fingers interlaced so tightly the knuckles had whitened. “Do you remember that ridiculous movie that was on a few nights ago, when neither of us could sleep? About the Jamaican bobsled team going to the Olympics in Canada?”

Of course I remembered. It _had_ been ridiculous, complete rubbish, but... “ _Cool Runnings,_ ” I said.

John looked up at that, startled, and smiled. “I was sure you would have deleted it.”

“No,” I said, ducking my head as I made my admission. “I didn’t delete it, because it made you laugh.” I looked up again and caught John’s stricken expression. “And it was the first time I had heard you laugh in months.” (Trust John to be amused by a line about shattering bones.)

John’s eyes were very bright in the dim light of the desk lamp. “You and me...we’ve been through a whole heap together,” he said, quirking a sheepish smile at me. I returned it, recognizing the quote.

“That we have,” I acknowledged, and waited again. There was more, I felt, that he needed to say.

He reached out, then, but faltered, his hand halting midway between us. He looked up again and I saw the fear there in his eyes. In the end it was I who bridged the gap, extending my own hand to clasp his. His fingers were calloused and warm and felt tiny in mine. But then, as he never ceases to remind me, I do have oversized hands.

“I have nightmares,” he said. “Well, you know that, 'course you do. I’ve had nightmares since before we met. But now...”

“Now they’re worse,” I said. “They’re not just about the war, or the fall. They’re about Mary and the well and the drugs and Eurus and...all of it.”

“Yeah,” he said, searching my face. “How can you possibly know that?”

I tightened my grip on his hand. “I know because I have them, too,” I admitted quietly. “Every night. Every time I try to sleep. It’s...quite exhausting.”

“And they always end the same way,” he whispered.

“With me losing you,” we said together.

John swallowed. “I’m afraid, Sherlock,” he rasped, as is his way when in the grip of a strong emotion. “I don’t know how to deal with any of this, with any of what we’ve been through. I...I stopped drinking, you know that, yeah?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And, well...” He licked his lips, a nervous habit of his that I know of old. “Ella told me that once I stopped drinking, things would come up, that I’d been self-medicating to numb myself and that sooner or later those feelings would surface, and that I would probably find them overwhelming. And that, when that happened, I should—”

“Talk,” I said, smiling. “To her, or to me. She told me the same thing. Only it’s drugs in my case, of course.”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “So...this is me, I guess, trying to take her advice. This is me, talking.” He looked up with an uncertain smile.

“No,” I said, squeezing his hand in both of mine. “This is _us_ , talking.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said, and this time the smile reached his eyes. He sobered. “Can we really do this, Sherlock, do you think? Can we really...find our way out of this together?”

“Together is the only way there is for us anymore, I think, John. I...”

He squeezed my hand, waiting for me to continue. I swallowed and took a breath. Thinking back, I can no longer recall what I originally intended to say, but it was certainly not what I _did_ say next. I closed my eyes. “I’m so tired,” I breathed. Where had that come from? And yet it was the truth. I felt something give way, then, as though that simple utterance had been the last barrier standing against a raging torrent, and all at once I was powerless before the surge. I felt myself begin to shake and could not stop it. I pulled my hands from John’s grasp, pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes as though trying to hold something back, but there was no stopping this. I could as soon hold back a tsunami or an avalanche with my bare hands. It was inexorable. I could feel my breath rasping in my throat as the swell took me under.

“Hey—hey—Sherlock—” I heard John say, but there was a roaring in my ears and the world was whiting out at the edges, and anything else he may have said was lost to me. I was dimly aware of his hands on me, and then somehow we were on the sofa together as though teleported there, and I was sobbing raggedly in John’s arms. And he was holding me tightly, so tightly that it should have hurt but didn’t. Somehow he knew just what I needed, and this was it. He was murmuring in my ear, words I couldn’t understand, but his voice was soothing and his touch grounded me, anchoring me as years of sorrow and heartbreak and regret poured out of me.

I cried for Mary, because whatever she had been and done, and however she had hurt me, she was still my friend and I had loved her, too, and in the end she had taken a bullet meant for me.

I cried for Rosie, who because of that same bullet, because of my arrogance and cockiness, would grow up never knowing her mother.

I cried for my sister—brilliant, heartless, dangerous, and ever and always alone.

I cried for John and I, for how bitterly we had hurt each other over the years, and for all of our misunderstandings and missed opportunities.

I cried for Victor, my first best friend, whom I could barely remember now but whose loss had so devastated me that I rewrote the first six years of my life in their entirety. Victor, drowning alone in a well because I wasn't clever enough to save him.

I cried for Victor's parents, for the decades they had spent in agony, never knowing what had become of the son they cherished, and how the manner of his death must be tormenting them now.

I cried for Mycroft, who had had Eurus's (and my) care thrust upon him at far too young an age and had borne the burden alone all these years, and who was now grappling with our parents' censure and the mental, emotional and physical carnage our sister had wrought. And who didn't have a John Watson to help him.

I cried for Molly, for all the ways I had hurt her, and been forced to hurt her, though she deserved it least of anyone.

And lastly I cried for myself, for all the things I had had to do to keep my loved ones safe. I had lied and hurt and killed for them, and I would do it all again if need be, but the cost weighed heavy on my soul.

John held me through it all, rocking me in his arms as I have seen him do with Rosie, murmuring an unbroken stream of encouragements and reassurances and promises. _It's okay, Sherlock, I've got you. Let it out, it's been hurting you for so long. It's all right, I'm here for you, love, I'm here. We'll get through this together. You were alone for so long but you're not now, you'll never be alone again, I promise. Let it go, you're safe, I won't leave you._

He went on holding me even after the shaking subsided and my sobs ebbed away and my tears dried, refusing to let me go until I was ready. At long last, once the tempest had passed and I sat slumped against him, hollowed out and spent, I took what felt like the first free breath I had drawn in years and released it in a sigh that seemed to come up from my very toes.

John's arms tightened about me. "Sanka, you dead?” he whispered into my hair.

“Yeah, mon,” I answered, and then we giggled like idiots.

Ever since that night, John and I talk. When we can't sleep, when the thought of one more moment of staring at a dark bedroom ceiling becomes insupportable and we are driven to _move_ or jump out of our skins, when the ghosts crowd close around us in the dark and the nightmares drive us from our beds, John and I seek each other out, and we talk.

I have told him what I went through in my years away, and he has done the same.

I have told him that mind-palace John helped me survive Serbia, and he has told me that after my fall, he saw me in the same way he saw Mary after her death, and that his hallucinations of me were the only thing that kept him from killing himself.

I have told him about myself and Mycroft, and he has told me about himself and Harry.

I have apologised for Reichenbach, and he has apologised for cutting me out of his life.

I have told him that he has his own wing in my mind palace, and he has told me that he never stopped thinking of me, even when he was with Mary, even in his sleep.

He has told me what he really wanted to say at my grave, and I have told him what I really wanted to say on the tarmac.

He has told me about his time in the army and about being shot; I have told him about my time at uni and how I got into drugs.

He has admitted to being suicidal when he was invalided home, and I have admitted that my overdose on the plane was intentional. (I couldn't face Serbia again, not when the only thing that got me through the first time was the thought of coming home to John).

He has admitted that after my return, he went ahead with his marriage partly in retaliation for the pain I had caused him, and I have confessed that I left his wedding early so I could score and get precisely as high as I could without actually dying.

None of it has been easy to hear, or to say, and there have been tears and recriminations and sadness and anger and guilt. But there has also been understanding and forgiveness and closeness and healing and love. And in spite of all the stumbling blocks in our path, John and I have made great strides. Even Ella says so. I have given her permission to share with John anything I may say in our sessions that she feels might help him, and he has done likewise. It is helping.

But there is one thing that still lies between us, that is weighing heavily on John’s mind, and though I know what it is, I sense he is not yet ready to address it. He looks haunted when he thinks I’m not looking, and I can’t help thinking of Molly's words to me, years ago, before the fall. _I know what that means, looking sad when you think no one can see you._

So I wait, and I trust that when John is ready, he will come to me and we will work our way through it together, as has become our wont. But in the meantime, I worry about him.

The crisis comes, as so many crises do, unexpectedly and over a seeming trifle.

Early one morning, John comes downstairs before Rosie is awake. I am in the kitchen, working on an experiment. I don't ask how he slept; the answer is perfectly obvious. He knows I can see the bags under his eyes, just as I know he has observed the dark shadows under mine. He slept poorly; I, not at all. "What was it this time?" I ask. He looks down and to the side. "Mary," he says, though it takes him a fraction of a second too long to answer. I doubt he is aware that his fists are clenching at his sides. He's not being honest, not entirely, but I let it go. I have learned to let him speak in his own time. Instead, I smile at him and he smiles back, though his tension eases not a whit.

I can see him casting about for a change of subject. “Coffee?” he offers, nodding in the direction of the shelf where we keep the coffee press.

“Please,” I answer. “I’ll get the mugs,” I add. I move to the counter and reach up; John does likewise to my right, but somehow the coffee press overbalances and he has to make a sudden grab for it to keep it from falling and shattering.

It’s pure reflex, entirely beyond my control. Ever since Serbia, any sudden movement in the periphery of my visual field is a trigger. I flinch.

I try to cover up my reaction, hoping he hasn’t seen, but I know he has. When I turn to look at him, I can see that though he somehow still has a two-handed grip on the coffee press, he has forgotten its very existence. The look on his face is one of abject devastation.

“John—” I begin, and reach out to him.

“Don’t,” he says, and the word comes out a near gasp. I stop. He shoves the press onto the worktop and stumbles from the room.

“John,” I say again, and follow him into the living room. He is visibly shaking now and his breathing is ragged. I don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to know a panic attack when I see one. I don’t even need to be Ella Thompson.

John is standing with his back to me and I can see his shoulders hitching. I put a hand to his back and at my touch, his right leg gives out. I catch him and lower us both to our knees on the living room floor, turning him about to face me. There is a sheen of perspiration on his face and his eyes are wild. “Can’t breathe,” he gasps.

I put my hands on his shoulders, grounding him. “All right, John,” I say calmly. “You're having a panic attack. I need you to take one deep breath now. One breath, John. Please, will you do this for me?”

The words are no sooner out of my mouth than John's eyes widen in horror and he recoils, scrabbling backward and looking as though he's about to be sick. _Bugger_. Of all the things I could have said at a time like this—

"John—John, I'm so sorry. That was the worst possible choice of words," I say, reaching out a hand to him. He is sitting on the floor now with his head turned to one side, swallowing convulsively. "John, please, look at me." He turns back to face me. His chest is heaving and he is so pale I wonder how much more he can stand before he blacks out. I shuffle forward, crouching next to him. I put my hand on one quivering shoulder, and he allows it.

"One deep breath, John, just one, for me, please."

I takes him two tries, but he manages a long, shaky breath.

“Okay, that’s good,” I tell him. “You're doing well. Now I need you to look around the room and name five things you can see.”

"W-what?"

"It's a grounding exercise, John. It will help, trust me. Five things you can see, now."

His breath is making a _hnng_ sound with every inhale and exhale. “S-sofa,” he begins, and I nod encouragement. “Rug.” Another nod. He gulps. “Chairs.” I take him through the remainder of the exercise. Four things he can feel, three he can hear, two he can smell, one he can taste. By the time we get to the final deep inhale, his breathing has calmed, though he is still ashen and I can feel him shaking.

"Better?" I ask.

"Mmm." He nods. At last he asks unsteadily, “Where did you learn that?”

“Ella, of course. It appears I have PTSD, as well. Serbia,” I tell him. He knows I was tortured there. It was one of the things we talked about. “That was why I flinched. It wasn’t because of—”

“—the morgue,” he says, and there it is. The one thing we have never talked about, because it is the one thing John cannot forgive himself for. He puts a hand up and touches my forehead just above my left eyebrow, where his knuckles had split the skin. The sorrow in his face is more than I can stand. "I cut your forehead open," he says. "And your beautiful eye..." he turns his head away in shame, face twisted in self-loathing.

“I forgave you long ago,” I tell him, and he scoffs and turns back to face me.

“Well, you shouldn’t have done," he snarls. “Because some things, Sherlock...some things are unforgivable.”

“Like making your best friend watch while you swallow-dive off a building?” I ask.

“That’s not the same,” he begins, but I won’t have it.

“It is, John. It’s exactly the same. I did something heinous to you, and you forgave me.”

“You were trying to save my life,” John countered. “I was trying to take yours.”

“Yes—after suffering a devastating loss and after my sister messed about in your head!”

“That’s no excuse, and you know it, Sherlock! There’s a pattern here. Surely you can see it, that's what you do. You came back from being dead and I hit you. Not just once, but three times. After my wedding, I found you in that crack den and I hit you again. And then in Culverton's morgue, I beat you nearly to death. Molly had just told me you had weeks left to live at that rate, and even knowing that, I beat you so badly I put you in hospital. If they hadn’t pulled me off you, I would have killed you. I _wanted_ to kill you, Sherlock. What kind of person does that?”

“The kind of person who isn’t in his right mind.”

“Bollocks. An _abuser_ does that, Sherlock. Patterns don't lie. I’m an abuser. And you deserve so much better than that. You deserve better than me.”

“There is no one better than you, John,” I say quietly. “And there is no one else for me.”

“For the love of Christ!” he says, and pulls away, rising to his feet, pacing the room, gesticulating in his agitation. His voice rises, but at least there is colour in his face again. “Why the hell can’t you see you’d be better off without me? All I do is hurt you!”

“And why the hell can't _you_ see that I'm no good at all without _you_?" I shout back, despite myself, getting to my feet in my turn. “I wouldn't be better off, I'd be lost!”

He is shaking his head now, backing away. “No. No, you don’t get to give me absolution for this—”

"Well, if I can't, then who can?" I ask. "I was the one wronged. Shouldn't I be entitled to forgive if I so choose?"

He shakes his head with a small, dangerous smile. "No, Sherlock. That's not how this works."

"And why not? Why shouldn't I forgive you—"

" _Because I don't deserve it,_ that's why!" he yells, jabbing a finger into the air.

A silence descends that is so complete it makes my ears ring.

"John, please." I hold up a hand, and it is a measure of how far we have come that he listens to me, that he ceases his pacing and prowling and holds still, waiting. I take a moment and try a different approach. “Listen to me, John," I say more calmly. "Do you remember the first night we talked, when I broke down and you helped me through it?”

“Yeah, ‘course I do.”

“When you held me, John, that was the safest I have ever felt in my life. _Ever in my life_.”

I look him in the eye as I say it. All my barriers are down and I let him see me, undefended, unadorned, unfeigned. He reads the truth in my face, in my eyes, and looks gobsmacked.

"Yes, you're capable of great violence," I continue. "I've known that about you from the first day. But John, you are also a fierce protector of those you love. And more than that...you're what I need. Without you, I end up with a needle in my arm,” I say simply, and it is nothing less than the truth. I look away for a moment, then back again. "I'm not being dramatic, John, for once in my life. This is a simple statement of fact. You said it yourself: patterns don't lie."

John goes very still. He swallows and meets my eyes properly for the first time since the start of his panic attack.

“And without you, I end up staring at my gun,” he says, “or disappearing into a bottle. We’re no good together, are we? But we're even worse apart. What the fuck do we do with this, Sherlock? I’ve gone and bollocksed up a good thing.”

“You? You were hardly the only one making mistakes, John. There’s plenty of blame to go around, and a hefty share of it is mine.”

“So what do we do?” he asks again, standing before me with his arms crossed.

“We do what we always do, now, since that first night. We talk about it, we work on it, and we get on with it. We learn better, and we do better. But we do it together.”

“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “Right. Okay.” He looks up at me, then, and I can see the sorrow in his eyes. The remorse there, and the promise. “I am so sorry, Sherlock. So bloody sorry, you can't even—” he breaks off then and clears his throat, staring at the floor and blinking hard. It is a moment before he can continue. He breathes in and looks back at me, lets me see the truth in his eyes. Tears fill them as I watch. “I swear to you, Sherlock, I swear to you I will never touch you in anger again. Never again.” He wipes his eyes with the heel of one hand, sniffing, then nods to himself as though reaching a decision. “In fact, I’m going to make sure of it.”

“How so?”

“Ella has an anger management program that one of her counsellors is running. I’m going to sign up. I want...I need...to make sure this never happens again. And when I've done that—when I've learned to be the person you deserve—” The sorrow in his eyes has abated somewhat, but the promise is still there. “When I’ve done that, maybe then we can explore what else we could be...together?”

Warmth blooms through me at this, spreading outward from my chest until I can feel my pulse thrumming right to my toes, though my throat seems to be closing up. I have wanted this for so very long. “I would like that," I manage, “very much.” Which is a bit like saying the British like tea or the Japanese go in for peculiar trends. Factually accurate, but also a massive understatement.

John smiles at me then, and it is my favourite smile of his, gentle and full of love and bringing that beautiful inner light into his eyes. It's the same smile he gives Rosie when the tenderness wells up in him. He steps up to me, then, and I don’t know which of us moves first or if we move in unison, but John’s arms come around me and mine about him, and I rest my cheek on his hair, breathing in his scent. He holds me with infinite gentleness, as though I am something precious and breakable. We stand there like that for a moment that stretches into minutes, just breathing and drawing comfort, until Rosie awakens, crying. "I'll get her," John says, and releases me with a gentle smile. I immediately miss his warmth and the scent of him, but I smile back. He squeezes my arm with one hand and goes up to fetch our Rosie.

There is a tentative "Yoo-hoo?" from the doorway, and Mrs. Hudson pokes her head in. "Is all the shouting overwith, then?" she asks.

"Oh, Mrs. Hudson," I say. I had forgotten her existence for a time. "I'm sorry about the noise."

"Is everything all right with you boys?" she asks, coming into the room. "I've been so worried about the both of you, with everything you've been through... Are you sure you're okay?"

I look over to where John has just come in with Rosie in his arms. Rosie catches sight of us and squeals with joy, nearly squirming right out of John's arms in her eagerness to reach us.

"Yes, Mrs. Hudson," I say, though I am looking at John as I say it. "I think everything is going to be fine now."

"Yeah," says John, adjusting his grip on Rosie and looking back at me with a small smile. He looks tired, but there is a light in his eyes that wasn't there before. "I think so, too."

Mrs. Hudson favours us both with a smile and goes over to place a kiss on Rosie's hair. "I'll bring us up some tea, then, shall I? And maybe some biscuits for the little one," she adds slyly, aware of John's views on sweets for breakfast, and sweets for toddlers, and toddlers having sweets for breakfast.

"Bickits!" screeches Rosie, and John groans.

"Now you've done it, Mrs. Hudson. I was planning on fruit and cereal—"

"Not your nutritionist, dear," says Mrs. Hudson, patting his arm. "Back in a tick."

John shakes his head, smiling, then moves to the kitchen to settle Rosie in her chair, and we begin our day. Both of us are pallid, sleep-deprived, emotionally exhausted and doubtless in no condition to be caring for a toddler, but we will get through it in the only way that works for us, now: together.

 _Yes_ , I think, as Rosie babbles at me from her chair and I scrounge around in search of her cereal while John gets out the milk, _everything has changed. I’ve changed._

For the better, I think. Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, recovering sociopath, and human human being. At your service.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Cool Runnings_ is a bit of silliness starring the late, great John Candy, and it's loosely based on a true story. Jamaica really did send a bobsled team to the 1988 winter Olympics in Calgary. You can read about their story here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaica_national_bobsleigh_team?wprov=sfla1. If you're in the mood for a goofy comedy, this fits the bill. It's exactly the kind of mindless escapist fare I could picture John and Sherlock stumbling across on some obscure channel in the middle of the night and watching because neither of them can sleep.
> 
> Grounding exercises can be very helpful in dealing with anxiety attacks. Read more about the 5-4-3-2-1 coping technique here: http://www.therapistsb.com/blog/post/5-4-3-2-1-coping-technique.


End file.
